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The Story of Tobias, Part One: Mithrail and the Devil

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It was going to be just a cautionary mission. The small village of Isaudraud had recently been the target of a few devil summonings. While individually they were minor events, to have this many devils summoned within a season was frightening. There were signs that another summoning was about to take place, so Mithrail had been sent to catch the culprit. Mithrail had acted with haste and was flying as quickly as he could. But, judging by the screams of terror and the smell of burning, he was too late to prevent the summoning.

To his horror, he recognized the signs of the summoned devil. A horned devil summoned inside the sign of the broken temple could only be Baltruan, one of the chief horned devils that all archon were trained to recognize. While the signs of the summoning were still apparent, the devil was nowhere to be seen from this height. Mithrail landed, and judging from where the loudest screams were coming from, he judged the monster to be in the eastern part of the city. Mithrail saw the horned devil Baltruan off in the distance. Mithrail prepared himself for the surely inevitable battle by casting upon himself magic vestment, Shield of faith, bulls strength, and spell immunity for fireball, since that was the only spell most horned devils could cast that would harm Archons directly.

Mithrail shouted at the devil, “Baltruan, leave this village and return to the depths of hell! If you stay I will be forced to rid the world of your horrid existence, which I am perfectly willing to do!” Baltruan let out a deep, growling laugh and charged towards Mithrail, striking him with the long spiked chain the demon wielded. The blow rattled Mithrail for a moment, but the archon quickly regained his balance. Not wanting to endanger the people in the village, Mithrail flew into the sky, and cast divine power to boat his fighting abilities. The devil followed, striking him again with a rattling crash of the spiked chain. Mithrail swung his great sword at the devil, striking the devil once on the shoulder, and another slash to the stomach, opening a large wound. Baltruan then struck Mithrail with his chain, bit him on the shoulder, and opened a large wound on the angel’s side with a stroke from the large spiked tail. Mithrail flew off, but that gave Baltruan the chance to strike him again with the spiked chain.

Once Mithrail was a safe distance away, he cast a healing spell on himself, only to find that the large wound caused by the devil’s tail didn’t seal up, and continued bleeding. Baltruan then cast a fireball at Mithrail, but the protective ward Mithrail had cast earlier caused the fireball to fizzle out. This delay gave Mithrail a chance to cast another healing spell before the devil charged in for another attack. Mithrail managed to strike Baltruan on the leg, but the devil came back and struck Mithrail with the spiked chain, and across the chest with his monstrous tail, opening another gash. Feeling a little dizzy from the loss of blood, Mithrail flew off again, prompting another attack from the devil’s chain. Mithrail cast his most powerful healing spell when he was a safe distance away, only to see that the two wounds from the devil’s tail still refused to heal. Mithrail had heard that the tail of the horned devils had some horrifying wound dealing abilities, but had never seen it firsthand.

The devil flew towards Mithrail, but was not able to reach him before the archon prepared his attack. Once Baltruan was close enough, Mithrail struck him with a blow to the chest. The devil struck Mithrail with the monstrous chain twice, and once more with the barbed tail. Mithrail was growing weary, but noticed that the devil was incredibly injured and that this fight could soon be finished. Mithrail swung at the devil, and struck Baltruan a mighty blow to the wing. The devil tried to attack, but without the use of one of his wings he was unable to maintain his balance, so Mithrail took this opportunity and with one last swing of his mighty great sword he struck the devil in the heart. Mithrail only had a moment of triumph before realizing that the devil’s broken body would crash into the village square below, and of course many of the villagers had come out to witness the battle. Foolishly curious mortals, he thought before flying to grab the devil. He quickly realized that the load would be too heavy to truly control. He instead focused on pushing it to the edge of the village where it wouldn’t cause too much damage. He could feel the strain on his wings but knew that he had to keep struggling. He saw a lone figure running from the square following him, and he couldn’t help but marvel at the stupidity of some mortals. He crashed heavily, and could feel himself losing consciousness. His wounds still bleeding heavily, he accepted that he was to die now, but was glad he had managed to defeat the devil. The last thing he saw before blacking out was the shadow of a villager running towards him.